Ever wonder what it would be like to be a grad student? Considering a fourth year research project? Seeking a summer research placement? … but you aren’t sure if research is for you?

Check out SEEDS’ first research panel for some answers!

When & Where: Thursday, March 28 @ 6:30pm, Canal Building 3101

Five panelists share their experiences and thoughts on being a researcher and research opportunities at Carleton. Two of our panelists also share insight on pursuing careers in academia and industry after graduating. Our panelists conduct research over a broad spectrum of specialized areas, from Air Pollution to Mine Waste Management, Water and Wastewater Treatment, Green Building Design, and Materials Engineering:

Pouria Ghods PhD, P.Eng.,Co-Founder Giatec Scientific Inc.

Pouria Ghods has been selected for this panel because of his impressive research and remarkable transition from an academic researcher to a successful entrepreneur. He is the Co-Founder of Giatec Scientific, a company specializing in advanced concrete testing technologies. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering, Dr. Ghods completed his M.Sc. in 2004 at the University of Tehran, Iran, followed by a PhD at Carleton University where his research on the corrosion of infrastructure was recognised with many prestigious awards. Dr. Ghods then went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship in Materials Engineering at the University of British Columbia.

Amanda Pappin BEng,PhD Student (1st Year)

Amanda Pappin began conducting research in the field of air pollution as a fourth-year undergraduate student in Environmental Engineering at Carleton. In her work, she links epidemiological and economic data with air quality models to quantify how emissions influence human health. During her first year as a MASc candidate, Amanda travelled to conferences in North America, Europe and Asia to share her findings with the scientific community. With her research quickly gaining momentum, she transferred to the PhD program directly from a MASc. She hopes to temporarily join a research group at Yale University in the upcoming academic year if successful in her application to be a Fulbright Scholar.

Liam O’Brien PhD, Assistant Professor

Liam O’Brien is an Assistant Professor and Program Advisor for Carleton University’s new Architectural Conservation and Sustainability Engineering program. He is researching design processes and energy simulation for high-performance solar buildings. For his PhD, he developed a design tool for solar houses that enables efficient and highly-visual exploratory design of both passive and active solar systems. This work was a major task within the NSERC Solar Buildings Research Network, a $6-million nationwide strategic network. Dr. O’Brien and his team of graduate students are studying energy use and production on all levels of society from buildings to communities and city-level.

Natalie Linklater MASc, PhD Student (3rd Year)

Natalie Linklater’s research investigates chlorine alternatives to wastewater disinfection such as the use of UV irradiation and chlorine-free chemicals. Her work is featured as a book chapter in Monitoring Water Quality published by Elsevier (2013) and she recently traveled to South Korea to present at the IWA International Water Conference & Exhibition. Natalie is also a distinguished community leader and educator. She actively promotes engineering and has worked with organizations such as GoEngGirl, Let’s Talk Science, Girl Guides of Canada, A&WMA and SEEDS. As the current Co-Chair of CU-WISE, she has organized a number of outreach activities that engage high school girls with hands-on science and engineering activities. Her community involvement merited her the 2012 Claudette MacKay-Lassonde Graduate Scholarship awarded by the Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation.

Tessa Innocent BEng, MASc Candidate (2nd Year)

Tessa hails from the beautiful island of St. Lucia. She is a Summa Cum Laude graduate in Chemical Engineering from the Universdad de Camaguey, Cuba (2007). There she undertook research in the co-implementation of environmental, health and safety and quality management systems with a special focus on wastewater. Fluent in Spanish, French and English, Tessa worked for 3 years as a Management Systems Manager with a CocaCola bottler implementing key KORE programs . As a 2011 recipient of an OAS and Indira Gandhi Fellowship, Tessa is currently a Masters in Science candidate of Environmental Engineering at Carleton University. Her research centres on evaporation in Oil Sand thickened tailings. She hopes to pursue a PhD in the near future as she has a strong passion for research. She is a strong advocate for youth and science programs.

There is a tour of Plasco Energy Group’s plant and operation scheduled for Friday March 22, 2013 at 1:30PM. This is a new and innovative company in Ottawa which is converting municipal solid waste to a syngas, which is utilized for energy production. The process has a positive energy balance and the remaining mass is extremely small, which allows mitigates the necessity expanding current landfills. The following link is to their main webpage.

This will be a great opportunity for networking. If you are interested in going on the tour please send a RSVP to Bahman Banihashemi <bahman1981@gmail.com>, there is a limit of 10 students from Carleton University. Travel will be organized based on the response.

The BioBuild challenge is an online collaborative event that will take place over a 12 week period. Participants with varied backgrounds such as; wood science, engineering, design and chemistry are invited to work together to explore the use of novel wood-based bio-materials to produce next generation multi-functional building panels.

This challenge will run from February 25th until June 18th, 2013. The submission deadline is May 17th.

If you have an interest in building products, bio-materials or design, your input would be valued in this challenge. Students, academics and practitioners are all welcome. You can participate a little or a lot, either way you are sure to learn something new, stretch your creativity and make connections. In addition, there is 5000$ CDN worth of prize money for the best concepts.